1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a method for producing a semiconductor light-emitting chip and a semiconductor light-emitting chip produced thereby.
2. Related Art
A method of obtaining a semiconductor light-emitting chip equipped with a semiconductor light-emitting element (hereinafter, referred to as a light-emitting chip) by dividing an element-group formation substrate, in which plural semiconductor light-emitting elements are formed on a substrate, into individual pieces is widely used.
As a related art, there is a technique for obtaining a light-emitting chip, in which a laser beam is focused on an interior of an element-group formation substrate and irradiation is performed along expected dividing lines assumed on the substrate to form a modified region having crystal strength lower than that before irradiation of laser beam, and thereafter, starting from the modified region, the element-group formation substrate is divided to obtain the light-emitting chip (refer to Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2005-159378).
Further, there is disclosed a technique for increasing a number of chips that can be taken out from a single semiconductor wafer to improve productivity by, in a gallium nitride-based compound semiconductor wafer in which a gallium nitride-based compound semiconductor is laminated on a substrate made of a sapphire single crystal or the like, removing a part of the semiconductor to form a first dividing groove on the semiconductor and on a surface of the substrate on which the semiconductor is not laminated, forming a second dividing groove to face the first dividing groove (refer to Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2005-252245).
However, in the case where the sapphire single crystal is used as the substrate, there has been a possibility that cracks occur in the semiconductor light-emitting element in the semiconductor light-emitting chip obtained by dividing the element-group formation substrate.
The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances and has as an object to suppress cracking in semiconductor light-emitting elements in a semiconductor light-emitting chip obtained in production of the semiconductor light-emitting chip using a sapphire single crystal as a substrate.